One university’s secret list to judge applicants by their high schools – not just their marksBy Patrick CainNational Online Journalist, News Global News

Rebecca Judd, now 19, found her first term at the University of Ottawa last fall a cold shock. Her Grimsby, Ont., high school could have done much more to prepare her, she says.

“In high school, I definitely tried very hard for my marks, and I feel that sometimes I got the marks I deserved, but other times I did not try very hard at all, and still found that good marks were pretty effortless. In university, that is not how education works at all.”

Judd’s experience wouldn’t have been a surprise to the University of Waterloo’s engineering faculty, 500 kilometres down the highway.

For decades, Waterloo has been using a list of which Ontario high schools’ marks matched the marks their graduates got in engineering school — and which didn’t.

For admissions officers, it meant that they didn’t always have to take marks completely at face value. Universities don’t have much to go on, other than marks, when they made admission decisions, but the same mark from three different schools can mean three different things.

A generation ago, Waterloo’s engineers realized the solution was right under their noses — in their own data.

Waterloo could already tell what school inflated its marks by how much, by comparing the final high school marks students were admitted with to the marks at the end of first year. For schools whose graduates were admitted often enough to reach conclusions, that information could be used to help make future admissions decisions.

So they made a list of which high schools’ graduates had small gaps — and which had large ones. They called the gap the “adjustment factor.” Armed with this information, admissions officers could deal with the next year’s crop of applicants more fairly.

The existence of the list wasn’t a secret — but its contents were.

And at the top of the list, three years running, was the worst offender: Grimsby Secondary School.

WATCH: Ontario PC leader, community members call for moratorium on school closures

GSS graduates who ended up in engineering at Waterloo saw their marks drop over 27 per cent, as opposed to 16 per cent for an average Ontario high school not on the list. Some 45 high schools’ graduates had drops below 16 per cent —Toronto’s L’Amoreaux Collegiate Institute, for example, had a drop of just under 10 per cent.

Waterloo’s list helps solve two problems that come from universities accepting high school marks uncritically.

First, students with inflated marks risk being placed in programs they’re not prepared for. As well, the university risks being unfair to graduates of schools with more rigorous marking standards.

“You’re not doing a student any favours if they get into university and aren’t well-prepared for the challenge,” says Greg Moran, who ran admissions for the University of Western Ontario in the 1990s. “They are going to suffer the failure and frustration that that involves.”

Waterloo updates the list every year. Schools fall off and others are added, depending on whether the faculty has seen enough recent examples to draw conclusions.

“At high schools, you always want your students to do well, so you’re always struggling with the issue of making it a little too easy, because everybody’s happy when the marks go up. The principal is happy, the superintendent is happy, the parents are happy, students are happy.”

WATCH: First-year university students transitioning to life on residence

“It’s a great expense to the province, the students, and to the university to bring them to university, and you want them to succeed.”

“The issue of whether or not their grades are a good indicator of the extent to which they’re well-prepared for university is an important issue.”

Bill Anderson, a chemical engineering professor who has been the Waterloo engineering’s admission director for the last 10 years, calls the list “one of our tools in the tool kit to select students that would be a good fit.”

“It plays a role, obviously, but it’s only one of the things we’re looking at.”

“Obviously, we look at grades. We look at the adjustment factor. We look at extracurricular activities, awards, participation in events. We also look at potential work experience, volunteer experience that looks like work. We also look for some indication that they know what engineering is about — what they’re getting into, why they’re getting into it.”

For students at about two-thirds of the schools on the list, the adjustment factor works in their favour — their school’s graduates had lower-than-average gaps.

Some 74 Ontario high schools were on Waterloo’s list at some point in the 2016, 2017 or 2018 admission cycles. Some were on the list for all three years, and others for only one. The average in the table below is the average for the years available, which varies.

Click on a school to see board information and adjustment factors for all years available.

At a board level, schools in the public boards in Toronto, York Region and Ottawa, and in the separate boards in Ottawa and York Region, had average adjustment factors below 16 per cent. Only one school, Toronto’s L’Amoreaux Collegiate Institute, was below 10 per cent.

Of the five private schools on the list, four had adjustment factors above 16 per cent.

Waterloo also applies the concept between provinces in Canada, and for international applicants. Students from New Brunswick had their marks drop about 26 per cent, while graduates of Quebec’s CEGEPstream by only 5.2 per cent.

Internationally, students from Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Bangladesh had the biggest gaps, and those from Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia had the smallest.

WATCH: Students still struggling to pay off debt years after graduation

One university’s secret list to judge applicants by their high schools – not just their marksBy Patrick CainNational Online Journalist, News Global News

Rebecca Judd, now 19, found her first term at the University of Ottawa last fall a cold shock. Her Grimsby, Ont., high school could have done much more to prepare her, she says.

“In high school, I definitely tried very hard for my marks, and I feel that sometimes I got the marks I deserved, but other times I did not try very hard at all, and still found that good marks were pretty effortless. In university, that is not how education works at all.”

Judd’s experience wouldn’t have been a surprise to the University of Waterloo’s engineering faculty, 500 kilometres down the highway.

For decades, Waterloo has been using a list of which Ontario high schools’ marks matched the marks their graduates got in engineering school — and which didn’t.

For admissions officers, it meant that they didn’t always have to take marks completely at face value. Universities don’t have much to go on, other than marks, when they made admission decisions, but the same mark from three different schools can mean three different things.

A generation ago, Waterloo’s engineers realized the solution was right under their noses — in their own data.

Waterloo could already tell what school inflated its marks by how much, by comparing the final high school marks students were admitted with to the marks at the end of first year. For schools whose graduates were admitted often enough to reach conclusions, that information could be used to help make future admissions decisions.

So they made a list of which high schools’ graduates had small gaps — and which had large ones. They called the gap the “adjustment factor.” Armed with this information, admissions officers could deal with the next year’s crop of applicants more fairly.

The existence of the list wasn’t a secret — but its contents were.

And at the top of the list, three years running, was the worst offender: Grimsby Secondary School.

WATCH: Ontario PC leader, community members call for moratorium on school closures

GSS graduates who ended up in engineering at Waterloo saw their marks drop over 27 per cent, as opposed to 16 per cent for an average Ontario high school not on the list. Some 45 high schools’ graduates had drops below 16 per cent —Toronto’s L’Amoreaux Collegiate Institute, for example, had a drop of just under 10 per cent.

Waterloo’s list helps solve two problems that come from universities accepting high school marks uncritically.

First, students with inflated marks risk being placed in programs they’re not prepared for. As well, the university risks being unfair to graduates of schools with more rigorous marking standards.

“You’re not doing a student any favours if they get into university and aren’t well-prepared for the challenge,” says Greg Moran, who ran admissions for the University of Western Ontario in the 1990s. “They are going to suffer the failure and frustration that that involves.”

Waterloo updates the list every year. Schools fall off and others are added, depending on whether the faculty has seen enough recent examples to draw conclusions.

“At high schools, you always want your students to do well, so you’re always struggling with the issue of making it a little too easy, because everybody’s happy when the marks go up. The principal is happy, the superintendent is happy, the parents are happy, students are happy.”

WATCH: First-year university students transitioning to life on residence

“It’s a great expense to the province, the students, and to the university to bring them to university, and you want them to succeed.”

“The issue of whether or not their grades are a good indicator of the extent to which they’re well-prepared for university is an important issue.”

Bill Anderson, a chemical engineering professor who has been the Waterloo engineering’s admission director for the last 10 years, calls the list “one of our tools in the tool kit to select students that would be a good fit.”

“It plays a role, obviously, but it’s only one of the things we’re looking at.”

“Obviously, we look at grades. We look at the adjustment factor. We look at extracurricular activities, awards, participation in events. We also look at potential work experience, volunteer experience that looks like work. We also look for some indication that they know what engineering is about — what they’re getting into, why they’re getting into it.”

For students at about two-thirds of the schools on the list, the adjustment factor works in their favour — their school’s graduates had lower-than-average gaps.

Some 74 Ontario high schools were on Waterloo’s list at some point in the 2016, 2017 or 2018 admission cycles. Some were on the list for all three years, and others for only one. The average in the table below is the average for the years available, which varies.

Click on a school to see board information and adjustment factors for all years available.

At a board level, schools in the public boards in Toronto, York Region and Ottawa, and in the separate boards in Ottawa and York Region, had average adjustment factors below 16 per cent. Only one school, Toronto’s L’Amoreaux Collegiate Institute, was below 10 per cent.

Of the five private schools on the list, four had adjustment factors above 16 per cent.

Waterloo also applies the concept between provinces in Canada, and for international applicants. Students from New Brunswick had their marks drop about 26 per cent, while graduates of Quebec’s CEGEPstream by only 5.2 per cent.

Internationally, students from Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Bangladesh had the biggest gaps, and those from Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia had the smallest.

WATCH: Students still struggling to pay off debt years after graduation

One university’s secret list to judge applicants by their high schools – not just their marksBy Patrick CainNational Online Journalist, News Global News

Rebecca Judd, now 19, found her first term at the University of Ottawa last fall a cold shock. Her Grimsby, Ont., high school could have done much more to prepare her, she says.

“In high school, I definitely tried very hard for my marks, and I feel that sometimes I got the marks I deserved, but other times I did not try very hard at all, and still found that good marks were pretty effortless. In university, that is not how education works at all.”

Judd’s experience wouldn’t have been a surprise to the University of Waterloo’s engineering faculty, 500 kilometres down the highway.

For decades, Waterloo has been using a list of which Ontario high schools’ marks matched the marks their graduates got in engineering school — and which didn’t.

For admissions officers, it meant that they didn’t always have to take marks completely at face value. Universities don’t have much to go on, other than marks, when they made admission decisions, but the same mark from three different schools can mean three different things.

A generation ago, Waterloo’s engineers realized the solution was right under their noses — in their own data.

Waterloo could already tell what school inflated its marks by how much, by comparing the final high school marks students were admitted with to the marks at the end of first year. For schools whose graduates were admitted often enough to reach conclusions, that information could be used to help make future admissions decisions.

So they made a list of which high schools’ graduates had small gaps — and which had large ones. They called the gap the “adjustment factor.” Armed with this information, admissions officers could deal with the next year’s crop of applicants more fairly.

The existence of the list wasn’t a secret — but its contents were.

And at the top of the list, three years running, was the worst offender: Grimsby Secondary School.

WATCH: Ontario PC leader, community members call for moratorium on school closures

GSS graduates who ended up in engineering at Waterloo saw their marks drop over 27 per cent, as opposed to 16 per cent for an average Ontario high school not on the list. Some 45 high schools’ graduates had drops below 16 per cent —Toronto’s L’Amoreaux Collegiate Institute, for example, had a drop of just under 10 per cent.

Waterloo’s list helps solve two problems that come from universities accepting high school marks uncritically.

First, students with inflated marks risk being placed in programs they’re not prepared for. As well, the university risks being unfair to graduates of schools with more rigorous marking standards.

“You’re not doing a student any favours if they get into university and aren’t well-prepared for the challenge,” says Greg Moran, who ran admissions for the University of Western Ontario in the 1990s. “They are going to suffer the failure and frustration that that involves.”

Waterloo updates the list every year. Schools fall off and others are added, depending on whether the faculty has seen enough recent examples to draw conclusions.

“At high schools, you always want your students to do well, so you’re always struggling with the issue of making it a little too easy, because everybody’s happy when the marks go up. The principal is happy, the superintendent is happy, the parents are happy, students are happy.”

WATCH: First-year university students transitioning to life on residence

“It’s a great expense to the province, the students, and to the university to bring them to university, and you want them to succeed.”

“The issue of whether or not their grades are a good indicator of the extent to which they’re well-prepared for university is an important issue.”

Bill Anderson, a chemical engineering professor who has been the Waterloo engineering’s admission director for the last 10 years, calls the list “one of our tools in the tool kit to select students that would be a good fit.”

“It plays a role, obviously, but it’s only one of the things we’re looking at.”

“Obviously, we look at grades. We look at the adjustment factor. We look at extracurricular activities, awards, participation in events. We also look at potential work experience, volunteer experience that looks like work. We also look for some indication that they know what engineering is about — what they’re getting into, why they’re getting into it.”

For students at about two-thirds of the schools on the list, the adjustment factor works in their favour — their school’s graduates had lower-than-average gaps.

Some 74 Ontario high schools were on Waterloo’s list at some point in the 2016, 2017 or 2018 admission cycles. Some were on the list for all three years, and others for only one. The average in the table below is the average for the years available, which varies.

Click on a school to see board information and adjustment factors for all years available.

At a board level, schools in the public boards in Toronto, York Region and Ottawa, and in the separate boards in Ottawa and York Region, had average adjustment factors below 16 per cent. Only one school, Toronto’s L’Amoreaux Collegiate Institute, was below 10 per cent.

Of the five private schools on the list, four had adjustment factors above 16 per cent.

Waterloo also applies the concept between provinces in Canada, and for international applicants. Students from New Brunswick had their marks drop about 26 per cent, while graduates of Quebec’s CEGEPstream by only 5.2 per cent.

Internationally, students from Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Bangladesh had the biggest gaps, and those from Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia had the smallest.

WATCH: Students still struggling to pay off debt years after graduation